Hike #855; Easton Area Loop

Hike #855; Easton Area Loop

6/13-6/14/15 Easton Area Loop with James Quinn, Sarah Jones, Larry Philips, Zain "Slasher" Abass, Christian ?, and Scott "Tea Biscuit" Helbing

The group at Taco Bell!

Our next hike would be another epic night hike in the Easton PA area.

I never get tired of hiking the Easton area. There is always something to do. We never seem to run out of fun places to explore, and this time we'd check out even more than we'd done before, and create new experiences that we'll always remember.

James, Sarah, and Larry started this one off with me. I had had a plan for a couple of hikes I wanted to do, but sort of changed it last minute to another Easton loop. I forget even which one I wanted to do for sure, but the one we ended up doing was perfect.

We walked from Northampton Street Free Bridge in Phillipsburg across to Easton, and followed the waterfront to the Forks of the Delaware and Lehigh, then headed to cross the Lehigh on the Rt 611 bridge. We headed south on that just till we could get on the Lehigh Canal towpath's slack water section to head west. I had done a variation of this hike with Brandan Jermyn not to far back, but it was good enough to repeat with some changes.

We remained on the towpath out past the first lock sites, then turned to the paved trail that goes by the Glendon Ironworks site.

Glendon Ironworks

I really wanted to do some of these areas especially for Sarah and James. They both knew the area very well, having lived there before, but hadn't seen some of these great places I knew well. Glendon Ironworks is just one of those nice  historic spots I love. We wandered through some of the ruins and checked out where homeless people had been staying. I also wanted to go there because it looked from the previous time that some of it might get bulldozed.

While in the ruins, I found a fat chick porno magazine, so I showed it to James. I carried it out with us and handed it to Sarah, which was somewhat funny.

Sarah shows James the facts of life

We continued walking along the path, which made it's way back up to the canal. We followed that to where the path turned away again from the canal, to Hugh Moore Park proper, and there we met up with Slasher and his friend Christian. Together, we all headed onto the D&L Trail route across the old Glendon Bridge, then onto the former Central Railroad of NJ via the paved new switchback. I recently found out that my friend John Discuillo was the guy in charge of that project! Small world!

We hiked the trail onward from here to the next park near the shooting range, then headed down to closer to the river. This was the old trolley right of way, which we followed on to Chain Dam. From that point, we made our way along the river on the footpath that in part follows the earlier towpath of the Lehigh Canal. The later towpath went to an island with an amusement park on it, but the original involved ferrying boats and mules across the river closer to Chain Dam. A bridge was later constructed that eliminated this, but I like to try to trace the earlier route because it keeps us closer to the river. It was fine for a good while, and I got ahead, but the further we went on this route, the worse it got.

Eventually, it got to where we were fighting through some rough stuff, the worst of which were the stinging nettle plants. I pushed on through and made it to the spot I usually use for swimming, but it looked sort of nasty. Because my legs itched and stung so bad, I sat in the water anyway. I think pretty much everyone did just for the relief.

We continued up the hill from here to the paved trail on the old CNJ right of way again, and continued past the former junction site that went up hill to connect with the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Easton and Northern line. We'd follow this later, but first I had planned to go to one of the good swimming spots. We passed the boat launch area, and there was a guy trying to back his vehicle down the ramp and having an awful time. I offered to back it up for him, but he didn't want help, so I guided him back and instructed him on which way to turn the wheel. He had it good, but as soon as I left he was driving the boat off of the ramp again.

The Lehigh Canal towpath becomes a rustic but clear through route from here, so we followed it along the river, in what was a good slack water section, and stopped to swim at the first good access point. Alyssa, Larry, and I were in pretty quickly, and I think Sarah followed. Slasher was putting off getting in, and finally he said if Sarah did it he had to. Even then, I still had to pull him in. It really felt great to cool off here. We made our way from this point back to the boat launch, then we headed to the south side of it and up a path that connected the the other trail, on the other old CNJ right of way. We continued gradually up hill on this line until we reached the underpass for Rt 33 high above.

View

Like the previous time, we climbed up to have a look around. I climbed up to get on the cat walk under the bridge, and James and Sarah were following. You have to hold onto an I beam in order to pull up, but not everyone wanted to do it. Sarah ended up being the only one who really wanted to go over. The two of us got onto the catwalk and continued to walk almost the entire way across the bridge. When we got just beyond the middle of the Lehigh River, I could see figures moving on the other side. I didn't want it to be any security  people, so we opted to turn back rather than continue the entire way across. I got some great photos of the river on the way though.

Walkway

Once back on the other side, a few more people were heading up. I knew then that this couldn't go on forever. I'd better enjoy doing this while I can because more and more people will discover it and it'll get blocked off. It's certain to happen.

We headed down the rough path to return to the rail trail, then took that heading back toward Easton. The rail trail is totally easy to walk, paved, and leads out to the other path which follows the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Easton and Northern line. We turned left on this and followed it out to where they built the Walgreens on top of it. The path skirts around the outside, and we continued across 25th Street to continue on the trail to Taco Bell. Tea Biscuit met us on this stretch of trail, then joined us walking back to Taco Bell. We all wanted some food, but unfortunately when we walked up, they had closed the lobby area. We tried walking through the drive through, but they would not take us either.

Taco Bell craziness

The good news was, Tea Biscuit had parked his pickup truck close by. He could pick us all up with his truck and drive us around with everyone in the bed to take their orders. It must have looked totally insane. I went around first, and the Taco Bell made us take everyone's orders individually. Tea Biscuit was forced to go around the drive thru multiple times so that everyone could place their orders! This looked absolutely hilarious!

Getting Taco Bell!

When it came time to get to the people sitting on the other side of the back of the truck, rather than have them switch sides, Tea Biscuit went through the drive through in reverse! To top it off, he had forgotten to put his headlights on. He had also given us all beers he had brought. With one in the holder in the truck, everyone in the bed with one, and me standing aside taking photos of all of this, a police officer pulled up.

He pretty much just asked "Whaaaat are you doing???". Tea Biscuit explained that we were a hiking group and he was just taking everyone around because Taco Bell wouldn't serve us without a car. The officer simply said "Just turn your head lights on..." and drove off! I can't believe there wasn't any other problem because he was going in reverse and everything through the drive through!

Reverse!!!

We all enjoyed our Taco Bell and nice break by the place. Larry had to get back earlier, so Tea Biscuit took him to his truck, and Larry dropped him back off with us after we got on the rail trail and reached Wood Avenue. From this point we all turned onto the trail from Lower Hackett Park up across Rt 22, then across Upper Hackett Park. A few cars went by, but fortunately we didn't have any problems. We got on the trail that went back down hill to the former Easton and Northern bed and then followed it south.

The railroad bed actually used to go through, but it passed through an industrial site. A deal was made that they would pay for the construction of the bypass trail if the city did not develop the trail through their complex. An agreement was made, and the section of the right of way through the industrial area was lost.

We followed the now unpaved rail bed south to the apartment complex that is built in an old industry. Chrissi and Alex met up with us here, assuming to hike with us for a bit, but instead Chrissi just joined to take a dip in the Bushkill Creek in front of the apartments, and then the two of them took off to try to meet up with us a bit later. It was getting later than anticipated and the group wanted to move on anyway. We had covered a bit more distance I believe than anticipated.

We continued walking along and followed Bushkill Drive from the apartments to the Sterner Arts Trail, partially on the old Lehigh Valley RR bed. This stretch took us to the cemetery and across the creek again, by way of the old cemetery road, then back to the rail bed. I had been planning to go up to Lafayette College, but no one was feeling it, so we instead continued on the streets through Easton. Besides, Chrissi and Alex were tired and didn't want to wait for us to get up there to join up again.

We continued out across the Northampton Street Free Bridge and reached the cars soon after. I drove Slasher and Christian back to their car and we were off for home. I felt really great about the events of the hike. A great combination of good company, adventure, relaxation, exploration, and silliness, the makings of life long memories that could never be emulated in such a way again. Everything just keeps getting better.